One of my first days in Oxford I was approached near the bus stop in front of the Tessco Metro in City Centre. The street was alive with double-decker buses, students, and tourists all rushing around the narrow pavement. My roommate Tommy and I were standing on the sidewalk, hands filled with plastic grocery bags, trying to find the best way back to the flat when a woman approached us.
“Excuse me sir, could you spare any change?” I looked her over from behind my sunglasses. She was wearing a white sweatshirt zipped up to the neck that would’ve matched the skin of her face if it wasn’t pock-marked and blotchy. Oxford and all of England was in a heat wave at the time. Tommy didn’t say anything.
“Yeah.” I said. I looked at the buses not knowing which one would get me back to the flat, and my wallet had already felt the sting of a black cab ride in Oxford. I looked back at her. “Tell you what, if you can give me walking directions to 92 Banbury Road I have some change for you.”
“Banbury road?” The task of thinking weighed heavily on her forehead. She contorted her lips while working out the route and then pointed up the road. “Right, so you’re going to want to cross the fork ahead and walk all the way up Banbury.”
“That’s it?” We hadn’t been in Oxford long enough to realize that to and from our flat was practically a straight line when traveling to City Centre.
“Yeah. It’s going to be a bit of a walk though.”
“Yeah, we’re aware of that.” I transferred my bags to one hand and gave the girl a pound. I figured that she saved me about seventy or eighty pence on bus fare.
As Tommy and I started our walk I reflected. “I think that asking something of the homeless is good. I mean, I think they’d rather feel like they provided some kind of service for the exchange rather than just begging.” He agreed, noting that they would be a valuable source of local information.
We arrived at our flat without any problems. The woman’s directions turned out to be flawless.
Word Slurpee 